Resilience Reimagined: A Practical Guide for Organisations

Discuss future failure

Consider connected impacts

Understand essential outcomes

Define impact thresholds

Balance strategic choices

Stress test thresholds

Enable adaptive leadership

DISCUSS FUTURE FAILURE: A selection of quotes from the research

Key considerations: • What assumptions do people in your organisation hold about failure? • Do people openly discuss future failure, potential issues and mistakes? • How are people tasked with spotting challenges, changes or potential disruptors on the horizon? • Which future trends might provide new opportunities for your organisation? What advantages could you develop?

“The Board were somewhat blindsided in their beliefs that the organisation could not fail, and that was definitely borne out of cultural trait, indeed the arrogance of some individuals, to think that the organisation could never fail.”

“Failure during this pandemic was inevitable. It’s important to look at the impact of disruption on others, not just on your business.”

“What we often see after a major event is everyone is thinking about it, but too often and soon after, it’s all forgotten with the mindset of ‘ it’s never going to happen to me again’.”

“If you’re not ahead of the curve on certain upcoming issues, then your organisational resilience will be impacted.”

“It is not a matter of if, but when, the next disruption will occur.” (Numerous).

“It’s an organisation’s responsibility to be resilient and plan for resilience. Now that there has been this bailout; are you disadvantaged by being a well-managed company in terms of risk; does the government bail you out if you’re not? It certainly raised the question of resilience for companies to now understand.”

“Recognise these were critical national infrastructure organisations, they didn’t realise the importance of their role in the system. But they also didn’t always understand the importance of the organisation’s role and keeping things going.”

11 Resilience Reimagined: A practical guide for organisations